Mightier Acorns

Some families pass down maternal surnames as first or middle names in their children. In the Putnam family, Charles named his youngest son George Force Putnam (1904–1978), not only giving young George the name of Charles’s father, but also bestowing his maternal grandmother’s maiden name as a middle name. This practice is common enough that I didn’t think to comment on it before, but as I dug deeper and found more information about the Putnam and Force families, I learned that the name “George Force Putnam” meant a bit more to the Putnam family.

Rochester Roots

According to his gravestone, John Putnam (1800-1854) was born in Dracut, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. By 1840, his family lived in Greece, a suburb of the city of Rochester in Monroe County, New York. We know from the 1850 census that he and his wife, Elmira, had at least three children, but since the 1840 census doesn’t list individual names, and I haven’t found a marriage record, we can only assume that Elmira was the mother of all of the children. We also can’t be sure whether the three older (unnamed) young people on the 1840 were his children, too.

John Putnam was a businessman who engaged in several enterprises. He died while visiting Richmond, Virginia, in 1853 at only 53 years of age. His youngest son, George C. Putnam (1835-1873), was 19 years old, but soon made a name for himself in Rochester and was even elected to the city Board of Supervisors in 1860. Among his activities, George was a member of the Rochester Light Guard, a militia that was organized under the New York National Guard as Regiment 54, Brigade 25.

The Force Family

Again, according to his gravestone, John Force (1809-1887) was born on 13 Aug 1809, but he was born in New Jersey. He married his first wife, Altha Farley (or “Alpha”—sources disagree, but “Altha” is on her headstone), and they had their first two children in New Jersey (George B. Force in 1831) and Easton, PA (Isaiah Farley Force in 1833) before settling in Monroe County, New York. There, they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Catherine, and a son, John Jr., before Altha died in 1849.

As young men, George B. and Isaiah Force were part of the Rochester Light Guard, where they became friends with George Putnam. They were coming of age in the late 1850s, and they found wives and married within those 5 years. George Putnam married Elizabeth Ann Force, the sister of George and Isaiah, probably in early 1856.

George Force probably married his wife, Ellen Whitney, in 1855 or early 1856, and they had a son, George Whitney Force1, who died in Rochester in 1857. Soon after this, George and Ellen moved to Michigan and had another son, Charles, in 1861.

When the War Came

When the Civil War began, George Putnam was the first of the three friends to join up.

Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861, and two weeks later, on 25 April, 1st Lt. George C Putnam enlisted in the 13th New York Infantry, Company A. During the war, he was promoted to the rank of captain. He mustered out and resigned his commission after a year, on 27 May 1862. After George left the battlefield and went to Washington, DC, where he worked as a clerk for the War Department, appearing in the city directory in 1864, residing at 110 Second.

George B. Force joined the 13th Michigan Infantry on 3 Oct 1861 as a captain. He gave his residence as Plainwell, Michigan, in Allegan county. He served at the siege of Corinth, Mississippi, as a member of the 13th Michigan before being discharged due to ill health on 31 May 1862. Not satisfied with such a brief military career, George moved back to Rochester and re-enlisted with the new 108th New York Volunteer Infantry as a camp instructor, where he was promoted to Major on 6 September 1862.

Major Force provided what little training the 108th received at camp, and was the only field officer in the 108th with previous military experience. He died almost immediately when the 108th entered the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862. His body was brought back to Rochester by George C. Putnam on the evening of October 3rd, 1862.

Isaiah Force was commissioned in the 140th New York Infantry Regiment on 10 September 1862, and he served during battles at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. He was discharged on a surgeon’s certificate of disability on 14 November 1863 and returned to Rochester. Soon after his discharge, he was given a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel for gallantry on the battlefield.

All From One Name

Isaiah Force and George Putnam remained business partners, and their families remained close, sometimes residing together, either in Rochester or in Michigan, where George moved to establish one of their businesses. When George died from an unspecified fever in 1873, his widow and two small children lived with her brother in Rochester for a time. And one of those two children, Charles Walter Putnam, passed the name “George Force Putnam” to his youngest, honoring several people at once.

As you can see, there is a lot of history behind the name of one boy. With the guilty knowledge that almost every child in each of these families inherited maiden names of mothers or grandmothers, you can see how their names remember those who came before—but you wouldn’t be able to know that without doing the due diligence of finding records and proving the relationships, first.